The awards are a joint initiative between Rabobank and Queensland Country Life and entrants can either nominate themselves or be nominated by others in the industry.

Queensland Country Life’s Red Meat Achiever Award recognizes an industry stakeholder who has contributed significantly to the betterment of Australian’s beef industry.

"Previous winners have come from fields including research and development, industry advocacy, processing, lot feeding and the supply chain development," Fairfax’s Agricultural Publishing general manager John Warlters said.

"We promote these awards to acknowledge the hard working people within our industry and give them due recognition.

"We first introduced this award at Beef 97 and the inaugural winner was Woolworths meat executive Phil Morley.

"Other previous winners include David Crombie, Larry Acton and Don Heatley, just to name a few."

The Rabobank Young Beef Ambassador is open to nominees aged between 21 and 35 years old.

These nominees must show potential to be a significant leader and contributor to our beef industry, while demonstrating commitment and vision for the future of Australian’s beef industry.

Supporting the Rabobank Young Beef Ambassador award since 2009, Rabobank Australia national manager of country banking, Todd Charteris, said investing in the next generation was key to ensuring the future viability of the beef industry.

“This award, which is presented to a young farmer that demonstrates potential to be a significant leader and contributor to the Australian beef industry, gives the recipient the opportunity to develop their leadership and management capabilities through attending Rabobank’s Farm Managers Program,” Mr Charteris said.

With the one-week residential program focussed on business planning, financial management, leadership and succession planning, Mr Charteris said the course (valued at $5,000) would not only benefit the future direction of the individual’s rural business, but the beef industry more widely.

“It is such an exciting time to be involved in agriculture and while there are so many opportunities for those in the beef industry, the younger generation needs to be equipped with the business skills and innovative mindset to capitalise on these,” he said.

The ARCBA R.W Vincent Award will recognise the outstanding contributions of a person to our beef cattle breeding industry.

Finally the MLA Producer Innovation Award will be given to a beef producer who best demonstrates ‘innovation’ across one of the streams; accelerated adoption, producer-led innovations resulting in new products, and brands plus value chains or producer-led new venture and start-ups. A finalist will be chosen from each of the three streams and this group will form the finalists for the Producer Innovation Award.

The prestigious awards will be announced at the curtain-raising Beef 2018 dinner.

Nomination forms are below to download for the Beef Industry Awards, which close February 28, 2018.